1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to structures that can be incorporated into an electrical connector in order to mechanically connect the connector to a complementary component. The structure is particularly applicable to board-to-board connectors, but not limited thereto.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,324,206 discloses an electrical connector comprising a pressure table floatably coupled to the connector housing and resiliently biased therefrom. This pressure table is operative to bias a flexible circuit against the surface of a mating circuit board.
In electrical connectors, it is necessary to establish not only an electrical connection between the complementary contacts which may be housed in a terminal block or upon a printed circuit board; but also, to interconnect mechanically the mating connector components to ensure that the electrical connection is not defeated. This has been accomplished in the prior art in a number of manners, such as fasteners similar to screws or clips, resilient latch arms on one of the connectors that cooperate with lugs on the other connector, or external devices that function to hold the two together. These structures typically work well where there is a fairly large range of tolerance with respect to where the electrical interconnection may occur over the distance of mating the two connector components together. This would be the case where one of the contacts is a pin contact an the other contact is a receptacle contact having spring arms to form a wiping interconnection with the pin, as anywhere along the pin would form a satisfactory connection. In addition, an interconnection of this type requires that a fairly large load must be brought to bear on the mating connector in order to engage whatever latching structure is being used. These two considerations create a problem where there is either not enough linear travel available to establish the desired interconnection or the mating components are not capable of bearing the amount of force necessary to establish the interconnection. An example might be where a daughter card is to be mated with a mother board and for whatever reason the standard edge card connector is not satisfactory.
These short comings are met by providing an electrical connector according to claim 1 for mating with a complementary component having a mating face and a plurality of complementary contact members. An embodiment of the connector comprising a terminal block having a front face and a plurality of contact receiving regions therein for receiving contacts that mate with the complementary contacts, a housing block wherein the terminal block is disposed and a connector coupler operatively associated with said terminal block for engaging an anchor fixed on the complementary component in order to mechanically couple the connector and complementary component; the connector being characterized in that: the connector is mounted upon the board such that the structure may float in the direction of mating and the terminal block is resiliently biased by a resilient member relative the housing bock such that when the connector coupler is engaged with the anchor, the front face of the terminal block together with the mating face for the complementary component.
This makes this connector coupler device especially useful where it is desired to form the interconnection between a contact pad and a spring contact, such as that used in an interposer. This feature further isolates those forces necessary to hold the electrical connector with the complementary component from the forces associated with the contacting members. Finally, a connector of this type is especially useful for board-to-board interconnections where contact pads may be used instead of contact pins. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,521 (incorporated herein by reference for all purposes) a co-axial connection module is disclosed that is particularly suite for board interfaces, especially one disposed on a multi-level board. In this case a signal pad is surrounded by a ground pad such that complete shielding is offered at the board. The module includes a conductive outer sleeve, a dielectric support element and a contact element having a spring portion extending therefrom. The conductive sleeve being configured to engage the ground pad and the spring portion to abut the signal pad such that a true co-axial interconnection is formed. By incorporating modules of this type into a connector having the aforedescribed structure, dimensional variations can be accommodated, mating force requirements reduced and any mechanical set of the spring member minimized as the loading thereof is controlled.